IPSE therefore welcomes the APPG recommending that training opportunities for female freelancers should be improved, especially as the MPs also heard that self-employed men earn, on average, 16% more than self-employed women when doing the same job.

“It is simply unacceptable that in 2019, the average female freelancer still earns 16 per cent less than their male counterpart,” saidChloé Jepps, deputy head of research at the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE).

“It is time for government and industry to step up and address the challenges faced by female freelancers. They should start by opening up more accessible training and development opportunities for female freelancers – and, indeed, all the UK’s self-employed.”

However, simply accessing training (whether it be to acquire new skills or not) “can be difficult for the self-employed”, acknowledged the APPG.

”[The self-employed] often struggle to take an unpaid day off work, pay for training themselves, or find flexible learning platforms,” the MP-led group added.

“These barriers prevent women from upgrading their skills and therefore being able to increase their rate [of pay] in response.

As well as reforming the Apprenticeship Levy so freelancers can benefit (currently, freelancers using staffing agencies suffer deductions due to the AL), the APPG recommends that government consider a diversity fund so SMEs could offer coaching and mentoring to support women.

Elsewhere in their 24-page report, the APPG provides a ‘toolkit’ designed to help employers “shift the persistent obstacles that women face when entering, progressing in, and returning to the workplace”.

IPSE reflected: “Women – and particularly mothers – are one of the fastest-growing groups in the self-employed sector.

“In fact, IPSE’s own research shows that the number of freelance mothers has doubled since 2008. But, as this report shows, like in so many other areas of the workforce there are still far too many obstacles holding them back.”